PROTECTING LIFE IN A NEONATAL WING

Even though this was a public hospital, in the maternity unit, everyone fought fiercely for the life of every unborn child. Whether they were cognizant of the fact or not, these doctors and nurses embodied the teaching of the Church.

For you created my inmost being;

You knit me together in my mother’s womb.

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;

Your works are wonderful,

I know that full well. -Psalm 139:13-14-

Pregnant with my seventh child, I was bedridden in the high-risk, neo-natal wing of the maternity ward for a week. I was waiting for a housekeeper to come  run my home and help tend my six children. Although I faced six months of bed rest, that one week gave me perspective and kept me from sinking into self-pity. Two other women in my room were desperate to keep their babies in utero and finally become mothers. One of the two had suffered five miscarriages. She was stuck in a ward room for months, only going home after the birth of her baby.

Secretly we all feared that we would lose our babies. Suddenly our fears materialized as a high-risk woman’s baby died in her womb. That poor woman had to endure an induction and labour for hours, only to push out a dead baby. The pain in that wing of the hospital was tangible. Tears ran down women’s’ faces as they grieved with their neighbour. It did not matter that none of us had even glimpsed her face. Nurses as well as patients mourned for a sister who was loosing her newborn. I became so nauseated with the awful vibes that pressed in on me that I ended up retching over the side of my bed with ice packs on my head to relieve a migraine.

Thank God, after the delivery, they moved this mother to the maternity wing where she was given a free, private room. Nurses as well as patients sighed with relief when the nurses told us that the hospital understood the need to shelter grieving mothers from others who cuddled and nursed their new babies.

Even though this was a public hospital, in the maternity unit, everyone fought fiercely for the life of every unborn child. Whether they were cognizant of the fact or not, these doctors and nurses embodied the teaching of the Church.

Human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception. From the first moment of his existence, a human being must be recognized as having the rights of a person – among which is the inviolable right of every innocent being to life.

Since the first century the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion. This teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable. Direct abortion, that is to say, abortion willed either as an end or a means, is gravely contrary to the moral law:

You shall not kill the embryo by abortion and shall not cause the newborn to perish.

God, the Lord of life, has entrusted to men the noble mission of safeguarding life, and men must carry it out in a manner worthy of themselves. Life must be protected with the utmost care from the moment of conception: abortion and infanticide are abominable crimes. CCC 2270-2271

My generous spirit petered out after a few weeks at home. My only outing was to a high-risk appointment every week. Church was even out of the question, so Michael brought home communion and the readings each Sunday. I remained in a prone position, eating while propped up on one elbow with my food cut into small pieces. The high-risk doctors let me use a regular toilet and have a quick shower every morning. In those days, we had one large, heavy T.V. in the living room, a black dial-up phone on the hall wall, no stereo system, no computer and the bedroom window was cloudy, so I could not look outside. In frustration I phoned my doctor one morning after my shower.

“But I don’t feel sick. I feel fine and my kids need me!” I wailed.

My usually laid back, jovial doctor explained my situation in graphic detail.

“You have a huge clot, 4-cm thick, 6-cm, wide from the top of your womb where the placenta tore down your entire right side. The last time this happened at the Civic was two years ago to a woman who had four kids at home. They both almost died. We had to call the Archbishop in to explain to her that it was more of a sin to her remaining children if she foolishly died along with her unborn child.

“Listen to me. Keep this image in your mind. Imagine that here is a gun pressed to your temple, cocked waiting only for the slightest movement to set it off. Lay in bed and do not move!”

Well that got my attention.

The hardest aspect to my forced “vacation” was letting go of control of how strange women cleaned my home, washed laundry and made meals. I endured terrible cooks and inept, lazy house cleaners but at least my kids could still lay down beside me as I read to them and helped with homework. It almost seemed orchestrated because God seemed to delight in my inactivity; He had ample time to teach me to let go, trust and to allow others to serve me.

The end result of my confinement was a beautiful baby girl with huge black eyes and black hair that stood straight up. She is now a gentle artist/philosopher whose dark eyes  still sparkle with life and joy, only one of the hundreds, why maybe thousands of young adults who owe their very existence to  ordinary nurses and doctors in maternity wings who fight for the lives of the unborn.
http://melaniejeanjuneau.wordpress.com/

Mary is My REAL Mum!

God has inscribed a moral code on my heart. It is  hidden in my deepest self. Actually, if  as an adult, I can block out my own ego and simply stop to listen, I can live a holy life. In fact Christ  offers an easy way to sanctity, to loving God and each other.  A spirituality that a child understands. A spirituality that St.Thérèse of Liseux understood. Relax. Give up striving. Surrender to His love and let it saturate every cell of your body. Then simply let His love flow through you. It ends up being a long journey to embrace such a carefree lifestyle because pride and ego get in the way. It is so simple that it seems complicated to our adult, logical minds.

“Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.” Matthew 19:14

And in even stronger terms:

“I assure you,” He said, ‘unless you are converted and become like children, , you will never get into the kingdom from heaven…’” Matthew 18:4

The Catechism of the Catholic Church:

526 To become a child in relation to God is the condition for entering the kingdom. For this, we must humble ourselves and become little. Even more: to become “children of God” we mu–t be “born from above” or “born of God”. Only when Christ is formed in us will the mystery of Christmas be fulfilled in us. Christmas is the mystery of this “marvelous exchange”:

O marvelous exchange! Man’s Creator has become man, born of the Virgin. We have been made sharers in the divinity of Christ who humbled himself to share our humanity.

A relationship to the living God is child’s play. Listen to this exchange between my young children:

One afternoon, I was making dinner, standing at the counter with my back to our three youngest children. Grace and Daniel were lounging around the kitchen table, with three-year-old Rebecca perched like a little elf on a high stool, happily swinging her legs.

Simply making conversation, Grace who was eight, asked Rebecca,“Rebbecca, whose your favorite, Mum or Dad?”

Rebecca replied,”Both!”

Still facing the counter, I looked over my shoulder and intruded on their conversation, “Smart answer, Rebecca.”

Rebecca was not done though, “But she’s not my real mum, Mary is.”

Grace rolled her eyes, slapped her forehead with the palm of her hand and said incredulously, “Where does she get this stuff?”

I tried to explain as simply as I could, “Well, the Holy Spirit is in her heart and she listens to His voice.”

Rebecca jumped right back into the discussion and chanted in a sing-song, lilting voice, “That’s right. God the Father in my heart. Baby Jesus in my heart. Holy Spirit in my heart. Mother Mary in my heart…but…I still like Mum and Dad the best!”

Grace rolled her eyes and plunked her head down on the table with a loud sigh, “Where does she get this stuff?”

I just laughed.

A few weeks later, as I crouched down to tie Rebecca’s shoelace,  she picked up the small gold cross I wore around my neck and said, “This is the cross of Jesus and the glory of God shines all around it.”

Grace rolled her eyes again, slapped her forehead and asked, “Where does she get this stuff?

She’s made in the image of God and she gets it right from the source of all truth.

Full Time: Working For My Father

    

Welcome, friends, to another Memoir Monday!

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With Mother's Day on the horizon,  
I began thinking about this very special vocation 
with which many of us are abundantly blessed.......

and reflected:

Life is lived around here between slicing apples into turtle sized bites, one just rescued from certain death crossing a busy road bordering our development. And the supplying of a desperately needed Tupperware for grubby, muddy little boy hands to house a beetle, cricket or worm. 

            And generally coasting through our brimming and busy days around  ratios, circumference, the Pythagorean theorem,  Earth science reference tables, test tubes, microscopes, assorted, strewn-about art supplies, Paul Revere’s midnight ride, half written essays on the causes of World War I, vocabulary lists, scattered violin and piano sheet music, baseball game schedules, self imposed writing deadlines, cleats, mitts, a bottomless laundry basket, always-dueling John Wayne impressions, homeschooling paperwork, tests, workbooks and inexplicably multiplying piles of legos and tech equipment. Oh yeah. And lots of noise.

Despite all this though, and the fact that I never, ever get five uninterrupted minutes ( as all homeschooling Moms can also attest) and the fact that it's taken me four hours off and on to type to this point in the post due to life's demands ( demands which I loooove, yet wipe me out)  and that as I  type this, I'm mediating some sort of dispute over who's music stand is in who's bedroom and not in the den where he swears he left it and who's turn it really is to unload the dishwasher and really how could you possibly think that the turning of the plot in' The Impossible Astronaut' is the scene in which The Doctor says, .......okay,  well, you get it. When they start arguing over Stephen Moffat's true intent in season 5, you know it's time to throw in the towel for the day ...... Yup, here’s the thing: 

I don’t miss it. You know, working.  

For pay. Outside my home. I don’t want it back. Not anymore. I’m not looking to be fulfilled by looking beyond my home and my family. 

Is this too provincial?  Too June Cleaver-backwards? Well, June Cleaver sans pearls and heels. Because I'm not a  pearls and heels person. 

 That I choose to stay home and not only like, I love, revel in, am passionate about, feel blessed by what I do?

 That I am called to tend my home, keep the hearth, teach the children.

 And not part time.

 That I maintain the best living and learning happens in the heart of my home?

That despite feminine strides for “equality,” I say, “Take THAT, twenty-first century. You can keep the norms and expectations of our times. I’m not buying into this.”

Because I know, I truly know, without a doubt as do many, many Moms, growing legions of mothers, that the feminist agenda is harmful to women. It’s harmful to children and families. It’s harmful to the future of our country.

 I choose to work for Him. This is my calling.  

            

Is my homeschool brimming with charity, energy and momentum? Waves of productivity and swells of creativity? How about Thoreau-like jaunts into the woods to immerse in our art? Picture perfect? No way. 

And that's not really the point, is it?

            No, my life is real. And unkempt and disorganized, disheveled, sometimes undone, burnt, unvacuumed, tardy, unmet, unwashed, wounded and just plain, lacking something, sometimes. 

But what it doesn't lack is the love. and the purpose and the certainty that this is where I prefer to be. 

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Have a  lovely day, friends and thank you for visiting!

 Until next time,

~Chris